Environmentalists were amazed after finding dozens of rare helmet urchins stuck to rocks in Thailand, which is 7,000 miles from their native Hawaii.
The bright purple creatures, Colobocentrotus atratus, were discovered on the remote island of Koh Banguin in Phang Nga province in southern Thailand on Wednesday (November 13) afternoon.
Forest technical specialist Pensri Pipat found more than 50 of the rare helmet urchins stuck to the coastal rocks.
The species of urchin have evolved to have smooth shells, different from the spikes of the typical urchins. The smooth outer layer reduces resistance to prevent waves from washing them away in their native Hawaii.
Similan islands national park chief Ruamsilp Manajongprasert said marine biologists are now investigating how they came to be living on remote islands in Thailand, more than 7,000 miles from their native home in the Central Pacific ocean.
Ruamsilp said: "It was great to find the rare urchins in our islands. But we cannot ignore that they are here, so far from where they normally live."
"We could not tell if our islands' ecology has changed or if the helmet urchins are an invasive species. We will work with ocean scientists to check this again and prepare for the countermeasures so that the ecosystem is not disrupted.''
The helmet sea urchin is usually found in Hawaii, where they have developed a smooth shell to prevent them from washed away by the island's powerful waves.
